The 2000 European Lacrosse Championships took place in Glasgow, with unfortunately only limited worldwide publicity.
Exactly the same nations took part as in the 1999 Championships: England, Germany, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Wales and Sweden, with England once again favourites to take the crown.
The six teams played each of the other teams once, with the following results:
| Germany | Czech | Scotland | Sweden | Wales | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | England 10-8 | England 17-4 | England 16-6 | England 10-3 | England 18-3 |
| Germany | Germany 8-7 | Germany 12-9 | Germany 10-4 | Germany 12-9 | |
| Czech | Czech 14-6 | Czech 8-5 | Czech 11-4 | ||
| Scotland | Scotland 10-8 | Scotland 9-8 | |||
| Sweden | Sweden 5-3 |
So England remained unbeaten, but without the overwhelming domination of 1999. This time the average goal difference fell to +9, and with only a 2-goal margin against Germany. This was perhaps due to the young profile of the English team, who were still gaining experience at this level.
After this group round, the six teams then went through to the final deciding games, the battles for 5th/6th places, for 3rd/4th places, and of course the final itself. All three games went right down to the wire. Firstly, Sweden required extra time to edge Wales 6-5 and take 5th place. Then Scotland overcame their first round defeat to clinch 3rd place with a 9-8 win over the Czech Republic. And finally, England, despite failing to score in the last quarter, held on to gain an 11-7 victory over Germany in the Championship Final, to take the title once again.
The final rankings for the 2000 European Championship look like this:
As you can see, the only change from last year's rankings is that Wales and Sweden swapped places at the bottom, although only due to a 1-goal overtime nailbiter. It's great to see such competitiveness and enthusiasm at all levels of the competition.
This information was gathered with the help of Petr from the Czech team, who has compiled the results on his own site at lacrosse.cz, in Czech under 'Reprezentace'. A report and some results were also published in the LacrosseTalk magazine, although the results differ slightly in a few places in the group stage: England v Wales (13-3), Germany v Czech (7-6), Scotland v Sweden (11-10), and Scotland v Wales (8-7).